History Trivia / BeingThere

* FakeRussian: Richard Basehart, an American, as the Russian ambassador.

* DoingItForTheArt: Beyond the effort he made to get the movie off the ground in the first place, Creator/PeterSellers gained weight to play Chance despite chronic and worsening heart problems -- and he hated how he looked this way -- solely because he thought Chance would be overweight given his sedentary lifestyle. He lost the weight as fast as he could after filming, which may or may not have been a contributing factor to his death.
* DyeingForYourArt: [[PlayingWithATrope Played with.]] Creator/PeterSellers let his gray hair show, unlike in most of his later films, but he did have it cut. As described above, he also risked his failing health to gain weight for the role.

* BannedInChina: Because it was potentially offensive to [[spoiler: Christians]], the original South African cut dropped the final scene.

** The filming script's ending was significantly different than what was ultimately conceived and used. [[spoiler: Eve follows Chance after he wanders away and they head back together. He leaves his umbrella behind to shield a small tree -- that would have been the highly symbolic final shot.]] This ending ''was'' shot, and a publicity still from the press kit was drawn from it, but the actual scene didn't surface until the 2009 Blu-Ray disc.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: Chance grows up with television serving as his only window beyond his SmallSecludedWorld, and watching TV is his favorite pastime, so the movie winds up presenting a large cross-section of what American television consisted of at the end of TheSeventies; the only show featured in the movie that's still on TV today is ''Series/SesameStreet''. The large clunky TV remotes frequently used by Chance and the fact that every television monitor is a CRT displaying analog broadcasts (whereas the vast majority of channels switched to digital-only broadcasting and the vast majority of households switched to LCD monitors thirty years after the film's release) also qualify.

* AFIS100Years100Laughs: #26

* FakeAmerican: Creator/PeterSellers, a Brit, as Chance. In the film, Chance lives in Washington, D.C., but Sellers intentionally plays him without any kind of specific regional dialect/accent as per a description in the book. To pull this off, Sellers took (British) Creator/StanLaurel's voice and gave it a generic "American" accent. Sellers was a huge fan of Creator/LaurelAndHardy and openly admitted to using Laurel's screen persona to inform his performance as Chance, which makes this a big ShoutOut of sorts.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: Chance grows up with television serving as his only window beyond his SmallSecludedWorld, and watching TV is his favorite pastime, so the movie winds up presenting a large cross-section of what American television consisted of at the end of TheSeventies; the only show featured in the movie that's still on TV today is ''Series/SesameStreet''. The large clunky TV remotes frequently used by Chance and the fact that every television monitor is a CRT displaying analog broadcasts (whereas the vast majority of channels switched to digital-only broadcasting thirty years after the film's release) also qualify.

* ActorAllusion: Subtle and probably not intentional, but a few minutes after Chance watches ''Series/SesameStreet'', Sally Hayes, played by longtime [[Creator/MuppetPerformers Muppet performer]] Fran Brill, shows up in the film.

* {{Lzherusskie}}: Richard Basehart, an American, as the Russian ambassador.

* WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants: The ending came about because of a comment that Creator/HalAshby made to a friend about how impressive Peter Sellers was in his performance and his willingness to try new things: [[spoiler:"I could have this guy walking on water at the end of the film!"]]

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: Chance grows up with television serving as his only window beyond his SmallSecludedWorld, and watching TV is his favorite pastime, so the movie winds up presenting a large cross-section of what American television consisted of at the end of TheSeventies; the only show featured in the movie that's still on TV today is ''Series/SesameStreet''. The large clunky TV remotes frequently used by Chance and the fact that every television monitor is a CRT displaying analog broadcasts (whereas the vast majority of channels switched to digital-only broadcasting forty years after the film's release) also qualify.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: Chance grows up with television serving as his only window beyond his SmallSecludedWorld, and watching TV is his favorite pastime, so the movie winds up presenting a large cross-section of what American television consisted of at the end of TheSeventies. The large clunky TV remotes frequently used by Chance also qualify.

* ActorAllusion: Subtle and probably not intentional, but a few minutes after Chance watches ''Series/SesameStreet'', longtime Muppeteer Fran Brill shows up to play Sally Hayes.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: Chance grows up with television serving as his only window beyond his Small,SecludedWorld, and watching TV is his favorite pastime, so the movie winds up presenting a large cross-section of what American television consisted of at the end of TheSeventies. The large clunky TV remotes frequently used by Chance also qualify.

* CreativeDifferences: Even though he's credited as the sole screenwriter, Jerzy Kosinski had almost no involvement with the film, since he and Creator/HalAshby had a different vision for the story, and Kosinski was busy with other work. Kosinski submitted a screenplay draft, but it wound up being largely rewritten by Ashby associate Robert C. Jones. Kosinski appealed to the Writers Guild for a full credit and got it, reportedly by submitting one of Jones's drafts and claiming that he actually wrote it.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: Chance grows up with television serving as his only window beyond his Small,SecludedWorld, and watching TV is his favorite pastime, so the movie winds up presenting a large cross-section of what American television consisted of at the end of TheSeventies. The large clunky TV remotes used by frequently used by Chance also qualify.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: Chance grows up with television serving as his only window beyond his Small,SecludedWorld, and watching TV is his favorite pastime, so the movie winds up presenting a large cross-section of what American television consisted of at the end of TheSeventies.

** Solely because of the "I like to watch" scene, Creator/LaurenceOlivier turned down the role of Ben Rand, the role which Melvyn Douglas won a Supporting Actor Oscar for. Creator/BurtLancaster was also considered for the part.